Sectumsempra
by Ankh-Ascendant
Summary: This is the story of when Snape created the Sectumsempra curse and what he did with it.


Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter franchise, and while I wouldn't mind owning Severus Snape, I don't own him either.

Rating: R-ish

Words: 1,492

SPOILERS: Tells you who the Halfblood Prince is, anyway…

Summary: This is about when Snape created the Sectumsempra curse, and what he did with it.

Parings: None

Warnings: None

Sectumsempra

setosgirl

_I am not a coward._

_I am not afraid._

_I have nothing to fear._

_I am not afraid, even if I do._

&&&&&

Severus Snape was aware of two things. One was that he was doing something quite illegal. The other was that he didn't give a damn. He sat in Potions class with that unbearable Professor Slughorn and wrote in the margins of his textbook. This was a very special curse… One invented for a very special person. And if that person ever so much as spoke to him again… _Sectumsempra_.

It seemed as if trying to get him killed by their pet werewolf just wasn't enough. What did those two prats want from him? That he slink off and die a horrible gruesome death? No, they wouldn't be satisfied with that. They wanted him to die a horrible, gruesome death in front of the entire school, preferably after begging for his life… Well, he'd be ready for them. This curse… He let his fingers caress the word lightly. _Sectumsempra_… It sounded rather Slytherinish, didn't it? But it didn't sound nearly as wonderful – as horrible – as it was. And only he knew the only way to undo the damage it caused – and that wasn't being written down anywhere, not even in this book.

His mind went to another curse he'd written in this book – one which had taken weeks to perfect, so that there were more than a dozen scratched out attempts. _Levicorpus_. Rather interesting, and of very little practical use, to be honest… It just hung one upside down by their ankle until the counter-curse was said. Or thought, rather, for both were nonverbal. Odd that it had been so complicated to create and yet so simple to perform…

Simple enough that even those Gryffindor morons could manage it. And use it against him. How had they done it? How had they even learned it – it was purely nonverbal, he was sure that he had never said it… So how had they been able to take it from him, use it on him, use his own curse to humiliate him…? And then, of course, to escape unpunished, just as they always did, even though the scene had been witnessed by more than a dozen people. Including a Gryffindor Prefect, who had seen fit just to bury his nose in a book and ignore it. For that, this new curse was for them. For Black, especially. If he ever so much as looked at him again, he'd be bleeding from his flayed-open chest, and unless he himself chose to save him… He was done for.

Then he glanced across the room. There, in all his glory, was James Potter, with Lillian Evans… And Potter was doing a motion with his hands that seemed to suggest that he was replaying a rather cruel trick even the sympathetic Mudblood could appreciate, since she giggled quietly. He sneered at them. Maybe Potter needed cursed as well. That was fine. Just let them try one more thing – any of them, even that stupid Pettigrew or the werewolf – and he could kill them. Easily. This time they would be the ones humiliated, they would be the ones begging him for their pathetic lives… and he probably wouldn't spare them. 'For enemies' the caption said beside the words in his book. _Sectumsempra_… for enemies… And what would be the point of a curse this powerful, if he undid it at the last moment?

Now he truly did have nothing to fear. He was not a coward, and it didn't matter how many times James Potter said he was. Or Sirius Black. Or even Peter Pettigrew, stupid sheep that he was, always doing what he thought Black would like. Following everything Black did, making sure to be friends with the most powerful, the smartest and the best in his House, never an independent thought or action – Pettigrew disgusted him. To be humiliated and called a coward by these people was unthinkable…

He knew he could take any of them in a fair one-on-one battle… but it never was one-on-one, was it? No, it was always four-on-one, or three-on-one with a pet Prefect just ignoring all that was happening. 'Gryffindor honour'… honour indeed. They were so honourable that they'd attack him four-on-one over a few words, when there was miraculously not a teacher in sight… so honourable that they'd break every rule in the school and get out of it every time they got caught doing _anything_. Because they were all smart, and attractive, and popular, and good at Quidditch… And then _he_ would get detention for heir attacks. Because he wasn't. He wasn't smart – he was, actually, but the didn't think so. He wasn't popular – all these morons were below him. He wasn't good-looking – he could admit that, and honestly didn't care. He wasn't even vaguely interested in Quidditch. He never even attended the matches. He was more concerned with his schoolwork, but none of the teachers seemed to notice that. They just noticed that he never decided to get on a flying stick and throw balls around a field. He wondered if they hated him just because he was a Slytherin. Slytherins always seemed to get the short end of the stick around here; they were always classified as trouble makers or worse, avoided and made fun of by every other House… If he had the power, he'd make Slytherins the favourite, just to show the others what it was like.

Potter laughed, and he ground his teeth, snapping his quill in half and pressing his lips together to keep from swearing. He had almost been able to forget about them for a few minutes… But no. They couldn't even let him think in peace. Without looking, he knew they were laughing about him. What else did they ever laugh about? If he was around, he would always turn around and find at least one of them staring at him… So now he never looked. He knew they laughed at him; why did he need proof?

Slughorn told them all that they could clean up, as he went around to look at their potions. He fawned over Potter's, as Snape sneered; mediocre, at best. His was perfect; he knew it was – and Slughorn nodded and told him it was very good, and moved on. Pressing his lips together again, bottling up his anger as he bottled up his potion to get graded – nowhere near what he knew he deserved, he knew that it wouldn't be – he shoved his books in his bag with a last loving glance at _Sectumsempra_, and left before he could get cornered by the geek squad. He wasn't in the mood to have to deal with them.

The fates were against him; he dropped a book as his bag tore down the side, and had to stop to pick it up, kneeling there in the shadows as he tried to make everything fit and keep it together again at the same time, all while hoping that they would walk by without noticing him. But he was a Slytherin, with Slytherin luck. They circled around him as he stood up, and he sneered at them.

"What's the matter, Potter? Can't find the way to your next class without me to lead you?"

Potter gave him a bright smile. "I think it must be the stench that's befuddling us, Snivellus. D'you mind not stopping in the corridor anymore?"

_'Do it…'_ a voice whispered in his mind, as his hand tightened around his wand. _'Prove you're not a coward…'_

Black spoke up, sneering at him from the end of their group. "Rather looked like you were waiting for us – maybe _you're_ the one who needs a guide around here. But I guess if I didn't ever stick my head above ground level, I might need a little help getting around too."

_'It's so easy…'_

"He's too busy trying to make up a potion to get rid of that nose to remember how to get to his classes," Pettigrew told them all confidentially, looking eagerly at Black for approval, which he got when the taller boy smirked. Lupin stayed silent, but Snape didn't even spare a glance for him.

_'Do it! It's so easy – just say it… you can get rid of them all now… you could be the one laughing over them as they beg you to help them… You can _prove_ that you're stronger than them all, that you're better… you can watch them all die… and they'll never call you a coward again…'_

He gritted his teeth and shoved past them without a word. So this was the truth then… he was a coward. He couldn't punish them, when they'd been all too happy to try to kill him… He just couldn't do it. He heard them laughing as he walked away, and he knew he should turn back and curse them…

But he didn't.


End file.
